Model Weta Wins Regatta!

Congratulations to Iain Anderson from California on winning his Scout Club Raingutter Regatta with ‘Surfing Pikachu’. Father (and proud Weta owner) David reports on the event..

What's smaller than a small trimaran? A model of a Weta designed to run down a 4 inch rain gutter, that's what. Iain has had quite the Cub Scout sailing career winning the design contest in his first two years before moving his sights to the racing classes. Last year his rule-beater 'superskiff' won the monohull division, and this year he stabbed the pointy end right into the hotly contested multihull fleet.

Having recently converted to trimarans in the real world of sailing, it was natural for him to give that form a try down the trench. So, we build a mini Weta--a reasonable facsimile of our own Surfing Pikachu--and, sure enough it dominated the catamarans with bursts of speed not seen before in the Raingutter Regatta. Congratulations, Iain!

•    The racecourse is 8 feet of standard house roof rain gutter filled with water.
•    Some packs have very strict design rules.  Most generally just stipulate that the hull must be built from the wood in the kit, the sail from the supplied plastic sheet, and other parts can be added for "decoration."
•    Iain used several photos of the Weta found on the Internet, and then drew up modified plans to match the maximum length and beam restrictions while keeping the basic look of the Weta intact.
•    To build the trimaran hull (not seen before in our pack), he sliced the monohull blank vertically in three.  He then took one of the sliced off outer parts and cut it in half horizontally.  The resulting two pieces flipped on their curved outside edge became the amas.  He would have liked amas a bit more true to the Weta shape, but that's all he had to work with.
•    The sail was shaped by tracing the Weta sail plan on the plastic provided and then flipping it to make a kind of double main rig with the same roach profile as the real boat.
•    The only material used that was not provided in the kit was a bit of model airplane birch ply for the "trampoline"
It was a fun project for both of us, and as you can see in the video, the little thing really flies!  I'm guessing we'll see a few more trimarans on the line next year!



We have also received some photos from another model Weta project from Joel in Austria. Joel made the 1:18 scale model pictured below with his grandfather. Congratulations on the model Joel! We hope you enjoy the sail in the full scale Weta we have organised!